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Queens in Alcohol

Ok, So I've slowly been collecting dead queens in a small jar of alcohol with the hopes of making my own swarm lure. I just got about 10 queen cells that were pinched and removed by a friend from a hive of his. This happened a couple of days ago. My question is, do these cells have any QMP that would be good for my queen jar? The cells were capped so they were getting close to maturity. Any ideas? This might be a good question for Michael Bush.

Re: Queens in Alcohol

Re: Queens in Alcohol

Not much if any QMP until AFTER they breed. The alcohol is the carrier solution for the QMP, a dried up queen has little or no attraction and with frost free freezers of today you will have a freeze dried/dehydrated queen body. Jim

Re: Queens in Alcohol

Yeah, the freezer is where I keep my small vials/commercial swarm lures. I agree, dead queens don't belong in the freezer. On a side note, one of the cells hatched last night and I have a virgin in a cage with a little honey smeared on the wire mesh. She'll be going in a mating nuc today. I'm glad the cells weren't completely pinched!